


Where Things Come Back

by pettyimperfections



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Drama, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Multi, Romance, bethyl
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-10
Packaged: 2018-03-17 08:02:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3521657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pettyimperfections/pseuds/pettyimperfections
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After four years, he no longer calls them dreams, when he sees her now, it's a nightmare. Always the same. Always seeing her as something she can never be: alive. So when a face from the past shows up at the gates of the Safe-Zone, Daryl can't help himself when he thinks he's asleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead or any of its characters

_He thought she was a roamer. The way she moved her body behind the dirty car window, she_ looked _like a roamer. With muffled moans she let out, she_ sounded _like a roamer. But then her hand came up to the glass, clawing at it for freedom, and through the grime he could see the pinkness of her flesh._

_He still held his knife out, as he reached for the handle of the car – just in case she posed a threat – but as soon as he pulled the door open, she collapsed. Her knees that had been holding her up on the back seat gave way and her entire body fell forward with door. He dropped the knife immediately and reached to catch her before she hit the asphalt._

_Half in his arms and half still in the car, he finally got a real look at her. She was a tiny young thing, no taller than five and a half feet. She had soft features and long blonde hair, which was covered in dried blood. The wound – the bullet wound to be more specific - on the left side of her head was to blame for that._

_He placed his fingers on her neck. Her pulse was weak, but still pumping, "How the hell are you alive, kid?"_

_She stirred slightly but didn't open her eyes. He wasn't was sure what he was supposed to do. Should he put her out of her misery? She was dehydrated, probably hadn't eaten a thing in a very long time and the head wound was most likely agony. She probably didn't have much longer._

_Carefully, he began to haul her out of the car completely, she was heavier than she looked. "Dead weight," he muttered to himself. She stirred again and he paused. This was someone's child he was about to kill. He thought about Duane._

_He could practically hear his son's voice, like right he was there with him,_ "But Daddy, she's survived this long and there has to be some reason for it right? Everything has reason."

_Everything has a reason. That's what he taught him; and maybe the reason he found this girl, maybe the reason she survived a thing that should have killed her instantly, was so he could help her._

_"Well shit," he groaned at himself, hoping he wouldn't regret his decision as he picked the girl up. He spotted a rundown shack in the distance. He could carry her that far._

_**. . .** _

 

_For three days straight she didn't wake. Not when he cleaned her wound and not when he dressed it. Sometimes he thought she was gone, her breathing was so shallow, but then she'd cry in her sleep or he'd checked her pulse and he knew she was still with him. He stayed with her all three days, living off the last of his canned food he had. He didn't want to leave her to hunt, not when she needed him most._

_On the fourth day, the crackling was what woke her up. One second she was lying on the floor motionlessly, and the next she on her feet, her blue eyes as big as saucers. She was yelling at him, some of the words were far from understandable, but she knew her curse words._

_He raised himself from the crouching position he was in by the fire place and started calling at her, "Woah, woah kid! Calm down!" He took a step towards her and she lunged for whatever was closest to her. In this case, it was an iron poker. He went to seize her wrist before she could get her hands on it, but before he even touched her, she recoiled, grabbing her head and breathing in painfully._

_"You okay?" he reached out to touch her shoulder, but reconsidered and placed his hand back down at his side._

_She raised her eyes at him, her fire now replaced with aching, "Wh – who are you?"_

_"My name is Morgan," He stepped around her carefully to block her from the poker, "Do you know yours?"_

_Her eyebrows creased deeply as she thought, she shook her head,"No."_

_"Do you know what happened to you? To you head." She reached up to forehead and winced, "No."_

_Morgan tightened his jaw. She didn't remember a damn thing. She probably didn't even know about the roamers. He was going to have to teach her everything; and everything was going to have to be in baby steps. He spoke softly to her, in a reassuring way, like he had with Duane so many times, "Okay… that's… okay."_

_"Do you know?"_

_Morgan sighed, "I don't know anything, kid" Her shoulders slumped. "But I'm gonna help ya."_


	2. Not Much Longer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so a quick explanation of this story and how it's going to be told.
> 
> This takes place four years after the events of "Coda". The years in between (flash backs) are in italics and are fragments of the four years that Beth and Daryl have been separated. It will be in Morgans POV. The present will be in Daryl's and Beth's POV.
> 
> I've had this story in my mind for a while, ever since Team Delusional was formed and the Beth/Bethyl fandom started publishing theories. So I decided to finally put it to paper...that's the saying right? I hope everyone likes it, and won't get too frustrated when you think there's something missing, because the things that matter have a way of coming back to us when we least except it.

When she woke up, in the dark and the dead of the night, she instinctively reached out for her machete. But as she glided her finger tips along the bone dry grass, she found nothing. For a split second, she panicked – the way she always did when she was unarmed – but then she realized she knew exactly where it was; where it always was if it wasn't beside her.

Slowly, she rose into a sitting position, letting her musty blanket fall to her waist, and using the embers of the fire to scan her surroundings as her eyes adjusted to the night. Soon she was able to spot it, the lantern glowing softly on the very edge of the camp. Without hesitation, she raised herself, letting the blanket fall off completely, and headed towards the light.

As he came into view, she smirked to herself. He was as predictable as it got. Since she first met him, this is how she always saw him on watch. Pouring over the map. Marking how long they'd been on the road and how long until they got there. It was what kept him sane.

The machete was there beside him, in arms reach if anything were to happen and she could tell by the tenseness in his arms that he was ready to grab it at a moment's notice. "Anything interesting tonight?" she watched as his shoulders became rigid and then relax when he saw it was her.

He lowered the map, the lantern now illuminating his dark features fully. He cocked his eyebrow at her, "You didn't hear it?"

"You know I didn't," she replied. They both knew, she slept like the dead. If they slept anymore that is.

"Well, it came right into camp," he explained, nodding in the direction it came in from. She didn't bother to ask what he'd done with it.

"I told you we should string things around the camp. Cans, hubcaps…it'd give a little more warning."

"It was only the one," He shrugged, brushing off her idea again. "You going back to bed?" She shook her head. "Good, you can take over watch."

She didn't argue. She took his place as he got up, watching as he carefully folded his worn map and began to head towards the fire. Before his figure retreated completely into the shadows, she called after him softly, "Morgan…" he turned around to look her in the eyes, "how much longer?"

"Not much longer now, Kid," He called and turned away from her again. As he disappeared from her sight, she settled herself up against the tree. _Not much longer_. This was the closest they had ever been. It made her nervous.

She sighed. What if it wasn't there anymore? Or what if it never existed? What if it had been a pipe dream they'd be chasing all this time? All of that scared her. But what scared her even more was, what if it was there? What if it was real?

She knew what they would do if it wasn't there. They'd carry on. They'd keep walking and scrounging for their next meal. They'd survive. But if it was there, they'd have a chance to really live, and she didn't know how to do that.

**. . .**

_He took her outside, when he thought she could handle it. He didn't give her a weapon, although he knew she'd need one eventually, but the walk wasn't going to be too far and there weren't too many of them that far out of Atlanta._

_"Wait up!" she called from behind him, she was stumbling in the grass as she walked, trying to keep in pace with him._

_He waited for her, "Sorry, kid."_

_When she caught up to him, he slowed his walking speed to match hers. She still stumbled a bit. He didn't know if it had to do with the healing hole in her head, or the fact that she was looking up at the sky. Probably a mixture of both._

_"You're missing the important stuff here, kid," Morgan spotted a roamer in the field, lumbering their way. He tapped her on the shoulder, she only flinched slightly, now getting use to his touch, "Look over there."_

_She took her gaze from the sky and followed his finger as he pointed, "Oh…who's that?"_

_"Not a who, a what," Morgan said, she furrowed her brow. "It ain't a person, not anymore."_

_"Then what is it?" she asked._

_How was he going to explain it to her? He hadn't explained it in so long, everyone who had made it to that point in the world knew. Morgan sighed, "It's a shell of a human. It walks and, if you spend a long enough time out here by yourself, you might even think it talks."_

_"But?"_

_"It don't," Morgan said, pulling out his knife as it got closer. "It's a threat." She opened her mouth to ask another question, but before she could, Morgan started walking towards it, he heard her follow a few seconds later. A little gasp came from her as they got even closer and she could see its rotting skin and clothing, "Can you smell it yet?"_

_The roamer began to moan when it started to smell them, picking up some speed in its stagger. Morgan started taking longer strides, until he was head-on with the beast. It moaned one last time, directly in his face, before he took it down with one clean stab to the head with his knife. As the creature fell to the ground, Morgan turned around to look at her. She looked, surprisingly, less horrified than he expected._

_He breathed out and explained, "You gotta hit them directly in the head, or they don't die." She cocked her head to the side, still looking at the roamer. "I know it's confusing."_

_"It ain't," She shrugged._

_"Really?" Morgan couldn't help but sound stunned._

_"Circle of life right?" She walked around Morgan to squat down beside it, "If we don't kill it, it kills us. Predator and Prey."_

_Morgan nodded. Although he didn't know who was the predator and who was the prey half the time._


End file.
